TEEN MAKES, STUFFS STOCKINGS WITH CARE.

Byline: SUSAN ABRAM Staff Writer

WOODLAND HILLS -- The project didn't sound so big in August. It was summer. There was time.

But summer melted away and fall came quickly, and Alison Mathis, a 16-year-old junior from Cleveland High School who plays soccer after school, thought, ``Uh oh.''

There were donations to collect, then sheets of pink and green and yellow felt fabric to be cut into various shapes, rhinestones and buttons to be hot-glued and, more importantly, toys and gift certificates and other goodies to be bought.

``There was a time when I spent three weeks not going out and sitting at home cutting out shapes for mouse eyes,'' the modest teen said, brushing her straight brown hair away from her eyes. ``I didn't have a life.''

But she made her deadline and her quota, and today, she will dress up in an elf costume and hand out 135 handmade stockings, all individually decorated and stuffed, to the children at Women's Care Cottage, a North Hollywood center that provides shelter to homeless women and their families.

She chose the organization because her grandmother, Betty Bieler, was one of the first to serve on the board of directors.

``I'm hoping it will be a great surprise,'' Alison said. ``We put a lot of thought into each age group.''

For the past five months, Alison turned her family's Woodland Hills home into a factory of sorts. The Mathises have always been an arts and crafts kind of family. Holiday stockings were made and hung each year. But Alison's idea caught her mom, Lynette, off guard.

``It didn't surprise me that she wanted to make stockings, but a large project of this scale was quite surprising,'' Lynette Mathis said. ``You just don't always hear about teenagers doing this.''

Using her own allowance money and leftover fabric from past family projects, Alison set out to make 60 stockings -- some decorated with cartoon characters such as mice, others with princess crowns -- until the Women's Care Cottage asked her to double the amount. Mom stepped in to help.

Then Alison wrote a letter to family members, neighbors and friends, asking for donations to buy toys and gift certificates.

By November, it all came together. There were Transformers action figures donated for the boys, Gigapets for the girls, and gift certificates to Jamba Juice and the movies for the teens. By Thursday night, the stockings, all stuffed and categorized in a dozen boxes and crates by age group, were ready to go.

Alison said her motivation was simply to give to those who don't have.

``I know I've been lucky and probably spoiled as are all my friends,'' she said. ``I know there are those who don't get a lot, so I just wanted to share.''

And if all goes well, she may even make stockings for next year. She's learned a thing or two that should make it all a little easier.

``I'll start in January.''

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Photo:

Alison Mathis shows off one of the 135 holiday stockings she made and filled for donation to the Women's Care Cottage.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer